While ghost riding my trick bike and trying to swirl around a car that decided to park on the bike lane along the 2nd ring road expressway making me have to swirl out into fast traffic hoping I would not get hit from behind by the approaching cars did make me have to yell at that stupid driver and not pay attention to the road for a second and oversee the unexpected pot hole making my trickbike suddenly jump around and then get caught with the bike I was riding resulted in me going over the handlebars and landing face first on the asphalt. But I was lucky: I was wearing my anti-pollution mask. That prevented my whole left side of my face skin to be scraped off.

So for all of you who want to look pretty and do not want to risk huge face road rash: Wear anti-pollution masks! I am so happy – My face only has minor road rash.

NIKE has a space in the Beijing 798 Art District. I went there to have a look today. It is the energy hall.

Currently it is used as an exhibition hall and for playing basketball. It could be a cool place to do some trick cycling. Maybe I can find some guys to train there with me. Or maybe we could even play bike polo there if any of the Beijing fixed gear guys are interested.

On my way back home I flew over the handlebars of my blue track bike for the first time. I was riding on the bike lane and had a green light when a cyclist (riding over the red light) came from the right. I thought he wanted to fully cross the street so I kept my line of riding and wanted to let him pass in front of me. He unexpectedly did a full stop right in front of me. So I tried to brake and just went flying right over the handlebars as well as flying over his back wheel and then landing with a nice roll. I started scolding him that if he wants to run over a red light he should just do it. If not, then he should just stop like all the civilized people at the bike stopping line and wait for the lights to turn green. He said he was so sorry and said he will never do that again. The whole bunch of cyclists waiting at that stopping line were all staring at me with their eyes wide open. I afterwards realized that my flight and stunt roll must have looked really impressive.

That reminded me of my friend who had a tricycle guy (that was riding in the wrong direction) almost crash into him. In the process of trying to brake the whole tricycle fell over. Unfortunately his load was beer, so that meant then that around 200 glass bottles with beer were spilled over the whole street. What a mess! Some people think riding in San Francisco with the steep hills is dangerous. But riding in flat Beijing has other sources of danger. And they are usually very unexpected.

The Green Lady of Beijing and director of Greening the Beige (GtB) Carissa Welton went to hold a presentation at the Canadian International School of Beijing (CIS) for the middle school and high school Earth Day assembly. To show them that being part of Greening the Beige can be fun I brought my trick bike and did a trick bike performance. They loved the stunts that I did. I just hope that none of the students will try the bike tricks on their own bikes in Beijing traffic.

Greening the Beige was celebrating the greenest day of the year – Earth Day with a party! Carissa had organized an Earth Day BBQ on the roof of Obiwan near JiShuiTan subway. There was be cinema and BBQ on the roof terrace of Club Obiwan, overlooking XiHai, with lots of old and new green friends. We enjoyed a selection of grilled organic-fed meats with plenty of fresh veggie options (includes 1 glass of punch) and watched a special green film screening. There was also the Earth Day raffle with cool prizes from our green-hearted sponsors. New members to GtB are always welcome!

Fede had just come back from Uganda where he had been teaching teenagers and children how to juggle and do acrobatics as well as putting a show together for them so that they could earn money. That is a project done by an Italian non-profit organization. And now he is off to Italy and Europe, leaving tomorrow. We will miss him.

So we had a party for him. Oli was DJ-ing some nice tunes, a lot of jugglers and friends came and Kris came and brought his new carbon track bike (credits to Risteard for the picture).

Today was the last day of the theater play „Orphans“ presented by the Beijing Actors Workshop (BAW) & Beijing International Theater Experience (BITE) produced by Anna Grace, directed by Peter Walters and staring Kris Chung, Ian Reed and Nick Ma. WOW. That was great acting! It was amazing. A very entertaining play that was professionally presented. I really enjoyed it. Looking forward to their next performances like the Spring Workshop Finale Festival May 14th to 17th (7:30 in Penghao Theater) and Shakespeare’s famous comedy „A Midsummer Night’s Dream“ held June 11-14 and 18-21

Last year a crew from Tianjin TV filmed me over a course of a few months documenting my life in China and my love for bikes as well as the starting of a fixed gear bike club in Beijing. They also filmed my participation and performance at Greening the Beige (GtB) 2008 and my green reason for cycling and taking care of environment.

This 30 minute documentary about the „Bike Fairy“ (Ines Brunn) was broad casted on Tianjin TV today at 17:55 to 18:30 (as well as at 23:00 to 23:35).
去年天津TV拍过我喜欢自行车和我们开在北京骑fixed gear的俱乐部。
天津电视台 卫视频道 <泊客中国>

From the GaoYaKou village (near the Stone Lions) we go the normal way over Gao Tai. At the train tracks overhead, we turn left (east) towards Beijing. We go through the “Dong Fang Hong” tunnel climb and ride over the flat valley floor to Shang Wei Dian village. Here we turn abruptly left and start a 20km (!) climb at 4-5% to the intermediate summit. We descent into Jian Gou Village where we tackle the dreaded (and most spectacular) Yang Tai Shan. (7km at 7%) In my humble opinion, this is Beijing’s premiere road bike climb – the most Alp-like for sure. It takes us up to 1180m above sea level and offers awesome views of the city below. Then we descent via the same way back to Jian Gou Village and go up 5km to Miao Feng Shan. We descend back 2-3km and go up the “Alpe D’Huez” of Beijing, an alternative route up to Yang Tai Shan.

This is my note from after the ride: The beginning was nice as we started cycling as for the Bai Yang Gou loop. But when we turned left (East) we had to cycle on a busy road with stupid drivers overtaking the opposite traffic and coming really close to us at high speed. The river was huge, it even had rappids at some points. The 20km climb is not a steady one. In between there are flatter parts, and even downhills. But there is a beautifull very long stretch just below the ridge of the mountains. It is a very narrow but nicely paved road and it seemed to last for almost 10 km slowly winding higher and higher. But then after a small village after 17km of uphill it suddenly get steep as hell. One part of me was saying get off and just push, you can’t make it. But the other side succeeded saying do whatever you can but stay on the bike at all times. Then from teh Jian gou Village the guys went up to Yang Tai Shan and the A-girls went up to Miao Feng Shan. The A-guys actually did not do the 2 other climbs „for time reasons“. But I think many of them were very exhausted already.

How small the world is: At the parking lot toilet of the temple Miao Feng I bumped into the wife of Ge Yajun. Ge Yajun and a friend were there too. What a nice coincidence! They took some pictures.

Today was quite nice weather. But as it is so dry there is so much dust everywhere. I cleaned my rooms a bit but was then happy to go to a friend’s courtyard for a small BBQ party. Well actually, it was a yang rou chuanr party. And the guy providing those lamb skewers was grilling them. That was perfect – nobody had to take responsibility for the grill, everybody could enjoy the BBQ.